Lecture 16, this is the abolition of slavery and serfdom.
The context here is the long 19th century that we discussed in our last lecture.
Let’s think about some significances here.
We’re going to eliminate one of the oldest traditions and one of the oldest human institutions
in human history, the ownership of other peoples’ labor.
The abolition of slavery and serfdom deserves some attention I think.
Imperialism actually increased exploitive economic practices, for the obvious reasons
– the Western industrial powers need to extract raw materials and cheap labor from
the periphery.
So why in the world does serfdom and slavery go away at this very moment that it would
appear they are most needed?
Here’s a quote from McNeill’s book, The Human Web, that I’ve used throughout these
lectures – quote, “But just as the world systems of forced labor obtain their maximum
historical size – because of imperialism, something strange happened – the systems
were dismantled.
Slavery, which had existed for at least five-thousand years and had seemed part of the natural order
of human affairs, in many societies came to be seen as immoral.
Simultaneously, it’s economic logic began to weaken.
Its’ political support waned, and its’ opponents organized – all these developments
show the worldwide web at work.”
Unquote.
Arguments against slavery – European sources, well the Methodists; the Quakers; other religious
groups regard slavery as immoral, as every person is viewed as equal in the eyes of God.
Of course, there is the enlightenment notion of equality.
Another argument says that slavery is inefficient because it prohibits innovation; there’s
no incentive to innovate when you have people working for free.
Let’s talk about these anti-slavery movements that are going to arise here.
Anti-slavery agitation arises periodically, especially it seems, in Great Britain.
There are public efforts to educate people about slavery.
In the mid-19th century, of course, in the United States is published the novel, Uncle
Tom’s Cabin, which sold in massive numbers – both in the United States and in Europe.
Some of you may remember, if you haven’t seen it you need to Google it and look at
it, or maybe we’ll supply a picture of it, the British artist, Turner, and his famous
painting, The Slave Ship – a very striking, dramatic painting, illustrating the sheer
brutality of the slave trade.
And of course, there are organized boycotts against slave-produced commodities – like
sugar, for instance.
And of course, the French Revolution argued against slavery.
The Haitian Revolution added force to the anti-slavery argument.
Of course, the Haitians, the slaves, overthrew the white power structure, took over the island.
A key factor – a new sort of humanitarian thinking.
Let’s characterize this.
A moral concern for those outside of one’s circle, society, or religion; a moral responsibility
for wrong everywhere spread.
This is new in human history and it has to do, I suppose, with the ease of transportation
and communication across the globe.
In Russia, serfdom is attacked; in part because it’s inefficient.
Again, Russia wants to modernize, right?
The enlightened despot, Catherine the Great, prevented publication of certain anti-serfdom
writings.
And of course, in the u United States, we have William Lloyd Garrison and his provocative
anti-slavery paper, The Liberator.
Of course, he published this from what 1830 or 1831, all the way up to the Civil War.
Patterns of abolition, they’re gradual and they vary from place to place.
The French Revolution, of course, to abolish serfdom in Western Europe in the late 18th
century; serfdom was viewed as incompatible with enlightenment ideals.
Great Britain outlawed slavery in 1808.
The 1848 revolutions in Europe stressed equality among men.
Russia ended serfdom in 1861; we mentioned this earlier.
Here’s another quote from the McNeill’s book on The Human Web – quote, “Serfdom
seemed backward to Russians conscious of the growing political freedoms in Western Europe.
It’s economic logic for the Russian elite declined because of Russia’s rapid population
growth – of course, that lowers wages, right?
Serfdom impeded technological progress because serf labor had no incentive to handle machinery
with care or to innovate.
It prevented the modernization of the Russian army, specifically the creation of a reserve
system, because the government dared not release serfs with military skills to their home villages.
With serfdom, Russia was stuck with a huge, expensive, standing army.
Russian social conditions, as we’ve mentioned before, lag behind the rest of Europe.
And of course, its defeat in the Crimean War – as we talked about last time – convinced
the Russian czar and the leadership that they had to modernize.
The Ottomans did not ban slavery as it was recognized in Islamic law and the sultans
did not feel they had the authority to change the word of God.
And then, of course – in the Western Hemisphere – we have the Wars of Independence in Latin
America as New Spain begins to crack up.
Now why did all this occur?
Humanitarian arguments; there’s an immobilization of public opinion through press and literacy,
communications, transportation.
I mentioned Garrison’s The Liberator earlier, this of course, was an incendiary paper – anti-slavery
paper – that condemned the South and its peculiar institution.
I believe Garrison was probably the most hated man in the United States between the 1830s
and the Civil War.
There are political campaigns against slavery.
There is a fear of slave revolts; you can see this going all the way back to Thomas
Jefferson.
The slave trade is no longer needed as the slave population can replicate itself.
Ex-slaves, like Frederick Douglass, useful in the abolitionist movement – I encourage
you to read Frederick Douglass’ narrative The Life Of A Slave; it’s very dramatic,
well written, quite short.
You can read it in a day or two.
Global population increases make labor cheap and available.
So slavery is undergoing here, a long, slow death.
I’m going to mention a key term here, and that’s paternalism.
The paternalistic view of slavery had long held that slavery was an essential school
for ignorant Africans and Asians.
In other words, Africans and Asians are benefitted by slavery; it lifts them from their barbarian
status – in the eyes of the West, that is.
This paternalistic school said that emancipation, therefore, could be a disaster as such peoples
were not capable of self-government or of individual responsibility.
So you can see at the heart of paternalism is this immense cultural arrogance – and
of course, remember Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
This had the wider effect of chilling any notion that the English or the French had
to come in on the side of the Southern confederacy because they would be supporting a slave state.
Slavery in Brazil ends in 1882, and of course, Brazil had consumed millions of slaves over
four centuries.
Four consequences of abolition – What happens when slavery ends?
Well you have apprentices; you have weigh stations for slaves.
A few slaves get land after emancipation.
Russian serfs get some land with redemption payments.
Serfs are tied to their villages until these payments are made.
Russian peasants’ protests continue into the 20th century.
Racism increases in the U.S. after emancipation.
All you have to do is Google Jim Crow on your computer and you will see sort of rampant
racism as African-Americans are depicted in sort of gross stereotypes.
Racism is less virulent in Latin America.
Some people have pointed out that with abolition there are sort of new manifestations of slavery
– Orphans in Brazil.
In the Belgian Congo you have the indigenous workers mutilated by the Belgian colonists
in their desire to extract rubber from the rubber trees in the rainforest.
You have harsh sharecropping systems in the American South and elsewhere.
Sharecropping creates an indebtedness that ties the workers to the farm or to the plantation,
and of course, textiles mills are going to recruit Asian workers in the Pacific region.
New sources of labor – We have streams of immigrants willing to make up the losses of
slaves, and of course, these huge numbers of workers keep wages down.
World opinion continues against slavery.
There’s a great deal of publicity about the brutality in the Belgian Congo.
Of course, white slavery equals prostitution, and a new kind of world opinion is available
to pursue injustices – we talked about these emerging NGOs in our last lecture.
Even today Amnesty International is a 20th-century manifestation of organizations determined
to end injustices – like slavery.
So a brief survey of the abolition of slavery and serfdom.
Thank you.